Becoming Lady Luck V1
by datsonyat
Summary: Old version. Please see Becoming Lady Luck under the username luckypals for the rewrite.
1. Cosmic Chance

**Rated T: **In place for future events. The rating will rise to **M** in future chapters due to language, violence/graphic violence, and sexuality. This is one of the Sannin I'm writing about; you should have a fair idea.

**Genre: **Drama/Friendship/Family/Adventure/Angst, with Romance later in the fic.

**AU: **No Kaguya. Drastic AU will develop.

* * *

**Becoming Lady Luck**

**Cosmic Chance**

* * *

My name is—that name doesn't matter anymore. No one wants to hear about that name. You want to hear about my new name, right? This is the story, the beginning of how I came to be named Senju Tsunade.

* * *

**運**

* * *

_Dying is awful, I fear death, I don't want to die_; those are the kinds of things most people say, or so I've been led to believe. Lying in a hospital bed, unable to move, see, or barely breathe, I was disinclined to agree with them. Unlike most people, I welcomed death. I was ready for it. Being stuck with more tubes and needles than any sci-fi movie I'd ever watched and drowning in my own fluids, I could only hope death would find me soon.

It would be some time longer before it would.

My parents heavily disagreed with turning off my life-support—I was their precious hard-conceived only child—something that horrified me at the time. I never wanted to end up in a state like this, artificially living through machines! I would never forgive them for keeping me alive in such a manner against my express wishes!

I used to try my hardest to rip the awful things out of me, but my fingers would merely twitch. My parents took that as a good sign, that I could come out of it, that I would miraculously sit up to live another day. They took the trembling of my eyebrows and the few frustrated tears that fell from my eyes as a sign that I was a fighter, that I wanted to keep going.

How wrong they were. It was the last thing I wanted. I suppose I've never been a fighter. Maybe that's why I was in that hospital bed in the first place. To me, that's why the storybook heroes existed. Wizards, knights, angels, soldiers, samurai, ninja— and those were my favourite, the ninja.

In my youth—before the sickness had eaten away at me and left me bedridden and gasping for breath—I'd discovered the manga, Naruto. The world of Naruto fascinated me, from the awe-inspiring power of the Bijū to the various ninjas' ability to control and shape the elements at their whim. What I enjoyed most about it was the titular character himself, who overcame everything despite the odds, who had the strength to keep going no matter what happened to him. I wished I could be like that. I wanted _that_.

I wanted _power_. I wished I could have something, anything, like that.

My love of Naruto was something I hid (before having to quit school due to the crippling illness, I'd been the shy, quiet 'nerd'; hiding my interests came naturally to me) so it was a surprise the day my mother started reading the Naruto chapters I'd missed to me. Apparently my secret was not so well-kept. That, or she went through my computer, something that infuriated my helpless self.

Regardless, I couldn't be angry at her for long—while I was comfortable with the idea of my death, she was far from it. I couldn't begrudge her for something as petty as going through my computer. So I listened to her, rapt, as she tried her best to read through the Fourth Shinobi World War. She even made a point to give the characters different voices. I had to admit it was a fine effort. I listened to her each week as the chapters came out, the only thing in my dimming existence that gave me some joy and excitement. The five Kage fighting Edo Madara was my mother's best and last performance.

As all things end, so too did I. It came one night not unexpectedly. Somewhere in my soul I felt it creep under my door and along the floor, slithering up my bed and over me. Death, here, at last. _Thank you_, I wanted to say as my consciousness faded, despite the mechanical interference trying to force me to cling to life. It should have been the end, it should have been nothing.

But it wasn't.

I'll give Death that there was a sense of nothingness, but I didn't appear to be quite gone. I was… _floating__(__?__)_ in nothingness. The floating sensation eventually became a tightening one. It tentatively scared me. Why? Because something kept telling me it was alright, it was fine to be just where I was. It was the only thing that saved me from transitioning into full-blown hysterics—not that I was sure I could, given my lack of form (or so I thought). Was I a ghost? I didn't know what was going on, how could I have? I wasn't sure how long I existed like that for. Suddenly, something changed—

It was like someone flicking a light on and off. One second I was there in that dark, constricting place, the next I was blinking into a blurry unrecognizable world—I later learned that had been my brain's self-defence mechanism; _who actually wants to remember being born?_ I couldn't hear the steady and continuous **beep beep beep** of the machines or smell the tang of hand sanitizer. Where was I? I blinked blearily again, trying to clear my vision. It didn't work.

Arms shifted around me—wait, what, _what_? How could someone possibly be holding me like this? I'm an Amazon of a woman!

"_She's not even crying_," someone, a man, remarked in a foreign language, rather upbeat with a hint of confusion. Was that Japanese? What the hell?

"_Of course not, Kawa!_" the woman holding me said. I instantly fell in love with her voice. I tried to reach out to touch her and ask her who she was. Imagine my surprise when it was nothing but odd babble. I heard a few voices coo at my strange noises. Why couldn't I speak properly? "_She's my daughter after all~!_" the woman declared, soft lips kissing my head.

Why was I so small? What was going on here? I lay there limply as the people in the room chattered in Japanese around me, trying to puzzle out what had happened. What a weird atmosphere I'd entered. They were all so painfully cheerful… Was the afterlife really like this? My skin felt oddly itchy, like something was simmering beneath it. I squirmed a little in the woman's arms.

"_Ehh, don't be like that Takara! She's my daughter, too! Look at her eyes! She has my eyes!_" I was lifted from the woman's comforting hold—was Takara her name?—by the man speaking. I felt his warm breath on my face as he carefully hoisted me to eye-level, cradling my head in his giant, calloused hand. I couldn't make out his face with my fuzzy sight, but I could tell he had darker skin and unnaturally bright red hair for how much the blobs of colour stood out. I wasn't sure what his name was yet.

"_Not at all, silly husband! Look at how light they are! Her eyes are definitely more like mine! And her hair is blonde like mine!_" Takara argued. I could already tell she was the kind of woman who spoke with her hands.

What were they saying? I couldn't understand a word of it.

"_You're wrong!"_ the man holding me argued back with her, "_I can see hints of red in it! She's going to have beautiful Uzumaki hair!_"

W-what? Did he just say 'Uzumaki'? Like Uzumaki, as in Naruto? It was hard to hear with whatever was wrong with me, but I'd understood that well enough. Why couldn't I see or hear properly? You'd think death would afford me a pass on physical afflictions at this point. Were the people taking care of me fans of Naruto as well?

"_Now, now,_" a second woman I couldn't see said. The authority in her dignified voice was evident. She deftly plucked me out of the redheaded man's grasp and rocked me gently. I liked her immediately. Maybe she could calm these two crazy people down. "_It doesn't matter which one of you she takes after more, Kawarama, Takara. She'll make you proud all the same. As for her lack of crying, be grateful._" She had the man's red hair. She sounded kind. I could hear the smile in her words.

The man whose name I now thought to be Kawarama, laughed, "_Sorry, sorry! We're just getting carried away is all, Haha-ue_!"

"_Ah yes, please forgive_—"

I slowly began to fall asleep even as the commotion around me continued. Was I somehow not dead? Were my memories of dying and the tight space all a dream? Was I on some funky drugs that were causing some kind of mind-body disconnect along with hallucinations? I didn't think that should have been possible, what with how clear my mind was.

I'd nearly fallen asleep when a sudden bang woke me out of my hazy half-slumber, and the excitement of the three giant nurses caring for me increased. It seemed another person had arrived.

"_Look, look, Chichi-ue! It's your first granddaughter!_" Kawarama exclaimed proudly.

I can only describe the noise that followed as some sort of high-pitched "squee-ing" that sounded like it had come from a man. I was promptly snatched from the arms of the lovely woman holding me and cuddled by a new person who showered me with sloppy kisses. I squawked, confused. Why was this guy all up in my space?

"_Hashirama!_" the calm lady scolded at the sound of my whining.

…Hashi-_what_?

"_Mito, look at our cute Tsunade! Isn't she so small! You named her Tsunade, right?_"

Tsunade…? This can't be what I think it is. No way. I'm not a baby! That only happens in fanfiction!

"_Tsunade for girl!_" Takara confirmed.

I think the higher powers were listening when I made my wish. _Why me_? Please god, let this be one huge cosmic joke! There's no such thing as reincarnation! There's no such thing as Naruto—

"_She'll grow up to be a strong kunoichi,_" Kawarama—is this my father?!—said with incredible pride.

The man holding me nuzzled my tiny face and said, "_Hello little Tsunade-hime! I'm your grandfather!_"

Uzumaki? Hashirama? Mito? _Kunoichi_?! **_Tsunade_**?!

I stared into the blurry expanse of his face squished against mine for a second before bursting into horrified tears and screaming at the top of my lungs.

Judging from his reaction—which seemed similar to mine—I think I offended him.

"_I told you to be grateful,_" I heard Mito say wryly somewhere in the background as my new parents fretted and Hashirama attempted to get me to stop crying to no avail.

* * *

**運**

* * *

It would turn out to be that it wasn't a joke. The universe really had been listening. I really was Tsunade, last Heiress of the Senju, Konoha's Slug Princess, the world's most renowned medic-nin and strongest kunoichi, one of the Legendary Sannin and Fifth Hokage. Well, I wasn't a majority of those yet, only the first, really.

Frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to be.

* * *

**A/N:** A Tsunade self-insert. What the hell am I smoking? Kawarama is named after the first of Hashirama's brothers that died. I'm aware this was a pretty short chapter, but it's only the intro! I find baby stuff so hard to write. For anyone who is WTF'ing at the title, please don't tell me Tsunade is known as the Legendary Sucker. I know that, aha.

Shameless plug: If you like SIs, I currently have two others posted, a Rin SI and an OC SI. Give 'em a read if you'd like.

Reviews are greatly appreciated! Tell me what I'm doing right, tell me what I'm doing wrong, tell me what you want to see more of! Thanks!


	2. Continuation & Rewrite Notice

Hello again! **Wait, before you exit the page, this is a great update!** I didn't expect to be getting back to you all so quickly, but things have changed!

On the plagiarism front, I don't know what's going on. I haven't heard back from the mods yet, but Lady Luck **is continuing!**

But it will not continue by me alone. My health is in decline again and I simply can't handle the enormity of this project by myself.

From now on, Lady Luck will be continued by both myself and my amazing friend, **BirdBoss.** It will be a **collaborative effort** so that this fic gets the attention it deserves and updates far more often. I cannot continue this fic solo due to health issues and other priorities, and we've been wanting to do a joint story for a very long time. When this opportunity presented itself, we took it!

You will be able to find this story under the same title, **Becoming Lady Luck**, under the username **luckypals **(our joint account). This is the only other place you should see BLL, as I will be deleting the AO3 mirror.

While we've made a few changes, such as switching from first person to third, we hope most of you will still want to read.

Thank you for supporting me this far! We look forward to seeing you in the rewrite, which is being posted shortly.

Again, I'll add what progress I made of chapter two in first person so this is not only a note. Please be aware this is subject to change.

**UPDATE AS OF MARCH 23RD 2016: **While this story is still continuing under the account **luckypals**, I cannot sit by while the person who plagiarized me continues to harass other people. For those that still check back here, **Seishun Kyousoukyoku** is their current username, and they have plagiarized both myself and another author, **Until The Bitter Ending**. Two other authors have called them out, but they have since changed their username to avoid the consequences. It takes a lot to push me to name and shame, but it has come to my attention this person is now privately harassing new authors by way of accusing them of non-existent plagiarism. Projection, much? I have personally spoken with all involved and can vouch that the only plagiarism that has taken place is on Seishun's behalf. Seishun, should you ever read this, know you have at least nine authors, most of them fairly popular, watching you here and for appearances on other sites. We are done tolerating your truly disgusting behaviour.

* * *

_Perhaps contrary to popular belief, there are consequences to being reborn with an adult's mind, especially when you're stuffing it into the body of an infant._

After that first unbelievable night—set of minutes, hours; really, it was impossible to tell—I can only assume that's when things started to go wrong. The last real memory I have was being handed back to Takara as Hashirama presumably sniffled about making me cry (I felt a little bad about that, but come on, _priorities_!). My world fast became an endless swirl of blurry colour, sound, and that incredibly horrible feeling that I would call chakra. And no, before you ask and because I'd read _so much_ fanfiction before I'd died, it's not because I was hypersensitive or allergic to chakra, or any combination thereof.

The simple answer was that I had the body of a newborn whose chakra coils were only developed enough to handle the amount of chakra necessary to live—even if they'd grown a little further in the womb thanks to my circumstances. Now take my adult mind, my soul full of memories, _everything_ that I had been in my twenty-two years—_all pure Yin chakra_—and shove _that_ into the tiny body I was inhabiting.

Once my Yin chakra activated in its entirety, I was living on borrowed time; mere minutes at the most before my tiny body tore itself apart from the inside out.

…I'm lucky to be alive. I'm damn lucky that Mito is an Uzumaki fūinjutsu master. I'm lucky that Hashirama _is_ _Senju Hashirama_, _God of Shinobi_. I'm lucky that my father is their son. I couldn't assume much about my mother, but I'm sure she did everything in her power to help. I mean, by all outward appearances, I'm her daughter, after all.

Which makes me feel… _guilty_ for what happened later on.

**.**

I wasn't _me_ after that. It was like someone had placed thick glass walls around me; I couldn't hear, and it was nearly impossible to see. I wasn't sure when I was awake or asleep. I was stuck like that, half-dreaming in a daze where clips of real life would occasionally spark in bursts of colour and sound, and I'd be so, so _scared_. I never failed to cry and flail in those instances. (There would be consequences to this that I'd learn about sooner than later.)

_"Aw, look at little Tsuna! She looks so cute in purple!"_ or _"Look, look, she can lift her head on her own! That's my girl!"_ and once in a while something more violent, _"SEE?! Tsunade is blonde, stupid Kawa!"_ (They would usually argue. My new parents didn't give off the best first impressions.) And big hands would always be manhandling me—gently, though. No one ever hurt me, but it didn't stop me from being terrified—I didn't happily accept being reincarnated, I just learned to live with it… eventually. I never saw anything definitive either; my eyesight was worse than it'd been the day I was born for some reason.

(I would learn why, and I would _hate_ what I saw.)

However, these moments disappeared as quickly as they would come, and I'd be left alone in my prison, dreaming of a fantasy world I wasn't sure was real.

_What is this place? What's happening to me?_

.

What happens when you combine an active, learning baby's brain with a dormant adult's mind acting as the processor and storage?

The learning speed is all but doubled.

Do you think Tsunade's genius was a fluke? The chakra control? Her prowess as an iry_ō_-nin? I don't.

Not anymore.

**.**

One day, I _woke_ _up_, for lack of a better term.

"—do you understand what I mean?!" The voice was feminine and very high-pitched. She sounded frightened, like she was trying to whisper but far too frantic to do so. It's Mama, I recognized, as I lay cradled in someone's arms, half dozing and not yet aware of my returning sense of self.

There was a pause, then: "Yes," a rumbling male voice replied evenly. "This is…" his tone changed to something I couldn't quite pin down, "quite strange." He was the one holding me. "I felt the change in her chakra immediately."

_Light switch: __**on**__. _

Suddenly, I realized I could understand most of what they were saying. Alarm bells went off in my head as everything slammed into me full-force and I panicked. I swung my short, pudgy limbs around—were they longer?—screaming like a banshee. I caught the man holding me off guard, but he recovered quickly and settled me into a different position. I felt the warmth of Takara's hands nearly touching me as she rushed to calm me down, and briefly one of the man's hands left my body to halt her. I used this lapse to grab onto him for all I was worth, still wailing.

Why?

To be honest, it was likely a reflex of some sort—something I'd developed in my 'asleep' state—and what else could I do, beat him off of me? I might have some luck with that in another fifteen years or so.

"Don't," was all he said. Dimly, I was reminded of Mito, however this guy seemed to possess an aura of coldness around him. At least that's how I interpreted him. I'm probably wrong. His chest feels hard. Is he wearing armour?

I quieted and opened my eyes, blinking rapidly as tears made my vision bleary, clutching something soft in my little fists. Lots of white, black, and blue. Huh? I looked up, both startled at how clear my eyesight was—seriously, how old am I now?—and who I was looking at. I made a piteous sound, half desperate sob, half keening whine. This was so _wrong_.

Here was Senju Tobirama—the three red markings (_scars_?) on his face were a dead giveaway—my _grand-uncle_, in glorious HD, studying me with analytical red eyes. He was easily the most elegant man I'd ever seen, from his silvery-white hair to the way his headpiece framed his face like an exotic crown. His appearance practically demanded respect. And here I'd gotten tears and snot on his majestic fur collar. Why was he bothering to hold me again? I didn't even realize that I'd gone from crying at his existence to a very still silence; I could only stare at him in awe.

"It's so rare to see her so quiet when she's in this state. She seems to really like you, Tobirama-sama," Takara exhaled in a rush, voice trembling. She sat across the table from us. Her movement caught my eye, so I automatically turned to look at her.

My first thought was that Takara could have been a carbon copy of an older Tsunade if not for the small differences in her facial structure. So, it's safe to assume Takara's a full Senju, then? She wore a colourful, luxurious kimono—which confused me as it hardly looked suitable for a kunoichi (maybe she's not? Yet it's difficult to believe she isn't). It leant her a regal air. Her hair was pinned up in an updo, the neat layers of light blonde held in place by—holy shit, were those _senbon__?_ Right, kunoichi status confirmed.

It occurred to me this was the first time I was (fully) consciously seeing my new… _mother_. It was a tough pill to swallow, no matter how you looked at it. My face wobbled as I tried not to start crying again. Let me tell you, as a baby, you really don't have much choice.

Tobirama was surprisingly gentle as he hushed me, petting my hair and wiping my messy face, Takara protesting that she'd rather do it all the while.

"No, it's possible your chakra will begin to resonate with Tsunade's if you touch her. I would rather observe her like this," Tobirama said.

It would be an understatement to say that I was overwhelmed. In my mind, I'd just been woken out of an induced coma—though I knew that wasn't true, if my fractured memories were anything to go by—to find myself older, therefore larger, and being held by the Second Hokage.

"Oh, yes, of course," Takara rambled on, anxiously wringing her hands. She tilted her head as she looked at me, amber eyes glassy with unshed tears. "She's just—she's not—I don't…" she trailed off, pressing her hand to her mouth, like she'd said too much.

I would've felt bad for her if I wasn't feeling equally as awful for myself, if not worse. I continued to cling to my grand-uncle numbly, somewhat taking in their conversation, but much too distracted to _really_ hear what they were saying.

I should've paid attention.

The coarseness of cloth clenched in my tiny hands, the smoothness of Tobirama's (uncomfortably) firm, blue armour against me, my five fully awakened senses—six if you counted chakra, and that shouldn't have been possible at my age. This was unquestionable real, there was simply no doubt, and that knowledge left me in a very bad place.

I was _Tsunade. _I couldn't _not_ be _Tsunade. _The world _needed_ her. I _needed_ to be _her._

(Don't I?)

"You don't use her name," Tobirama stated, shifting me to his other arm. Blankly, all I could think was, "_Why is he decked out in full armour at home?"_ I was in too much shock to think clearly, to act the way I should've.

In the end, that was going to cost me more than any of my other strange circumstances.

The blonde woman's bottom lip quivered before she answered, looking ashamed. "I… When she's like this, when her chakra changes… sometimes—sometimes I think…" Her hand flew to her mouth again, guilt overtaking her. She went pale and appeared downright sick.

"You don't think she's your daughter," Tobirama finished, eyes falling on me. He ran his hand over my little head; it felt nice and my eyelids drooped… but it didn't feel… _affectionate_, I didn't think. It was like a carefully calculated movement.

Takara gave a single, garbled sob as if to agree.

_Oh._ Did—did they just say something important? That was important, wasn't it? I turned my head up against his hand, gazing up at the silver-haired man seriously, completely unaware my expression did not fit my chubby, childish face.

I didn't try very hard to hide it at all. Maybe if I'd tried, things would be different.

His stare unnerved me. All I could think of was how rude I was being. I swallowed, feeling my cheeks heat up. "Hello," I greeted shyly, smearing a hand across my traitorous eyes. The word had come so easily. Their eyes must've been so wide.

You could hear a pin drop.

"What…?" Takara uttered shakily, jaw dropping. Tobirama said nothing and his face remained neutral to my untrained eye. (He'd obviously been suspicious and I'd been nothing short of a colossal fool.)

Takara shot upwards with a gasp, basically jumping over the table. Her shock was almost tangible.

I cried out in alarm, throwing myself back against Tobirama, pressing my face to his chest. Can you blame me for thinking the woman was insane, given what I knew of her at the time?

"_No,_" he ordered Takara sternly, halting her in her frenzied tracks. "No," he reiterated, "your touch may disrupt whatever's causing the bypass in her seal."

"Seal?" I mumbled nearly unintelligibly, suddenly concerned. That's _right_, I almost _died_. (Again.)

If only I could've seen their faces.


End file.
